just a warning... this may be a bit of a rant but it does apply to the topic at hand.

lag. check.
freezing. check.
stuttering.check.

i've been having issues for literally months without resolution. honestly i dont think they seem to care as they always point the finger at the end user.

its your hardware... i doubt a 1080p stream is causing a gaming machine to lag especially considering other flash 1080p streaming video is perfect. on off hours videos also stream perfect at crunchyroll most of the time.

its your internet speed... so 50mbps fios isnt fast enough? again, when it works on off hours and works on other sites this is not the problem.

its wifi... wired connection thanks for asking.

its your dns... no sorry its not. we tested this already per crunchyroll instructions. the dns i use now is just as fast if not faster then open dns.

you can just use lower quality video... if i pay for 1080p i will watch 1080p. why dont you pay for 3g on your phone and then use it in 1x mode. i didnt think so.

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honestly when will crunchyroll just own up to the fact that in some areas of the country the CDN they use just doesnt work out. it gets bogged down by either users or internet traffic in general. instead the emphasis from cr and from users on this forum is always on the end user.

while i would definitely like for there to be no lag and faster streams (like other streaming sites) there is one very easy solution to the whole problem....

allow buffering of the entire video.

youtube has the same problem. before when you could buffer a whole video if you were on when the network was lagging due to traffic you could just pause and walk away then come back. now that it doesnt buffer more than 20-30 seconds in front of you it constantly freezes and stutters. why media companies just dont realize this is beyond me.

most other anime streaming sources allow full video buffering, hence no problems.

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@bjaker

i do sincerely hope you guys do fix the cdn problem as well as the flash buffering problem.

that would be great.

honestly i dont like to rant but i feel like words feel on deaf ears around here.

I would love to see any correspondence where we blame your machine/connection/etc.

officially from you or starry? no.
at most you blamed my dns (which is faster than the open dns you guys suggested)
nothing was mentioned about my connection or computer since i provided the info up front and it was way beyond requirements.

most of the post is directed towards the public here on the forums who in many threads blame the pc, conn, dns or wifi since their CR works fine for them. they do not want to admit that it could be a cdn issue.

sorry for the confusion

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however....

i still never did get a response from you or starry in response to these very same issues which were brought to your attention months ago. if you need me to count i certainly can... 4 months ago.

it seems that whenever the issue is proven to be with the CDN or the crappy flash video player with no buffering nothing seems to happen.

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at a bare minimum allow us to buffer the entire video.

while i would still be upset with a slow connection from your CDN this would at least give me an option. instead i'm stuck trying to restart a frozen video or pausing every 2 minutes to try and fix stuttering.

as the support manager you have to realize how frustrating this can be for us.

youtube has the same problem. before when you could buffer a whole video if you were on when the network was lagging due to traffic you could just pause and walk away then come back. now that it doesnt buffer more than 20-30 seconds in front of you it constantly freezes and stutters. why media companies just dont realize this is beyond me.

most other anime streaming sources allow full video buffering, hence no problems.

Full buffering isn't allowed because of the way Adobe's DRM for Flash works, and the publishers expect their videos to be protected by DRM (regardless whether the same video is available elsewhere within hours).

Sites that are providing anime illegally certainly aren't worried about what the publisher desires, so they can use free video sites that as YouTube used to, allow full buffering.

The only legal site I had come across which provided (some) anime in unprotected streams was NicoNico.com (not to be confused with their Japanese parent, niconico.jp), but as you may note, they are no longer around.

yet another case where DRM hinders people following the legal route while it hampers doesnt hamper illegal use at all. when will companies learn DRM hurts only the legal customers. i do completely understand why they do it however there has to be a better way.

yes, i'm aware of those websites. pretty sad that i've been forced to stream from them instead of crunchyroll during peak hours isnt it? to be honest the only reason i keep CR is for naruto, strike the blood and a few other series. i could find them elsewhere but not in 1080p with decent subtitles. in any case i buy them when they are released on dvd so i support the studios fully (so there is no point commenting that i do watch on those sites).

i suppose the only option then is to fix the CDN so that it works for everyone. honestly on off hours it works perfectly fine but it gets bogged down at times and its frustrating. i can certainly understand this for a free service but for something you pay for this is NOT acceptable.

I talked to CR support about freezing/stuttering problems (in 480P, 720P and 1080P). In a nutshell, they asked me to clear Flash's and Chrome's cache. When that didn't work, they told me to send them pingtest and speedtest results, as well as a ping and tracert results to one of their addresses.

No solution was ever found and they never responded after that when I sent them a fresh batch of results right after the problem occurred. The worst thing is that it used to work just fine and that I upgraded my Internet connection so I had unlimited Internet. My speed rates are 10Mbps download, 1Mbps upload.

I talked to CR support about freezing/stuttering problems (in 480P, 720P and 1080P). In a nutshell, they asked me to clear Flash's and Chrome's cache. When that didn't work, they told me to send them pingtest and speedtest results, as well as a ping and tracert results to one of their addresses.

No solution was ever found and they never responded after that when I sent them a fresh batch of results right after the problem occurred. The worst thing is that it used to work just fine and that I upgraded my Internet connection so I had unlimited Internet. My speed rates are 10Mbps download, 1Mbps upload.

I'm very disappointed.

I'm glad to know that I'm NOT the only one that had this issue.

I usually don't bother with contacting support (not just here but support in general) as I have found it gets me absolutely nowhere. I usually contact them but if my problem never gets solved then what is the point in even contacting when they don't really help in anyway? It's like we speak completely different languages...
Usually end up requesting wisdom from Google.

I've clears my cache countless times
Tried three browsers (IE, FireFox and Chrome)
Disabled Chrome's built in flash player
Done Speed Tests
Done Ping tests
Done Traces
Updated flash player
Reinstalled flash player
Cleared flash players cache
Changed my DNS from my ISPs to Googles to various others
I know its not my net speeds (10+ Mbps connection) as I don't have the same problem on any site that has flash video players, YouTube or any other site. I remember when I started watching RWBY, it was not watchable! Had to wait for it to buffer every two minutes for like five minute or more to watch another two minutes of it. Go so sick of it I went to YouTube and watched it on Rooster Teeths official channel without any problems. Pressed played and away it went never once stopping to buffer, no lag, no stuttering or anything. It usually buffered the whole episode in like a minute or less. Given I do have issues with YouTube at times when the video starts without sound or doesn't play the first time but hitting F5 and refreshing the pages fixes it

Heck even have problem trying to watch any series on my tablet, if I have problems with buffering every two minutes, lagging, stuttering, video and audio out of sync, video and no audio or vice versa.

Some days it works flawlessly but most of the time I have to pause the video as it starts and go do something else for like 5 or 10 minutes or even 30 minutes to an hour.

At the very least try another flash player just to go through a process of elimination, give us an option via a link to like an older version of the flash player that was stable or a newer version or a different player altogether.

At the end of the day its not just one or two people having problems its a lot of people having the exact same problem, a lot of us are paying for a service that we really aren't getting. I only keep my subscription because of Naurto if it was not for that I would have cancelled my subscription and gone elsewhere.

Like I said before some days I can watch a video without any issue and other days i just have issue after issue that is the same ones that people are reporting and complaining about on the forums here. I just seem to have more days where I have problems watching anything (such as right now as I'm typing this I'm waiting for the video to buffer and rebuffer and buffer again...)

Another idea is why don't you guys send all premium members a survey based on the video playback and see exactly how many people are having issues in one way or another? We are after all keeping you guys in business so asking for your customers feedback on the service you are providing isn't such a silly idea as that way you can gauge how you are performing and what people are happy with and what they are not happy about. You can learn a lot and work on areas that are not performing as well as they should. After all what have you guys got to lose? You have a lot to learn from customers satisfaction survey etc.
If you find out a lot of people for arguments sake we'll say 46% (a random number off the top of my head) of premium members having the same problems with playback, then go back to the drawing board and investigate what could be the problem and how to fix it.

All in all you have a good service, good ideas etc but just needs to be improved, fixed etc in certain areas, just like with any company or business. No ones perfect (unfortunately as much as we all wish we were) and we learn from our mistakes as thats what makes us human, if we don't learn from our mistakes then what does that make us?

Another idea is why don't you guys send all premium members a survey based on the video playback and see exactly how many people are having issues in one way or another?

I like this idea, I've been trying to watch 1 episode of Arpeggio for about 41 minutes now from constant freezing. I've given up on contacting support since they've been giving the same methods out that don't result in anything fixing the problem other than just refreshing the page and having 30 seconds of video playback. I kind of feel like it's just the video player type.

I've been having the same issue with Arpeggio, sometimes it takes me two or three days to watch the newest episode. It could either be the video player or crunchyroll's server or both. I've tried watching episodes that I have problems with at different times like a hour or more after the latest episode is released, even a day or so after its been released and makes no real difference. if you watch an episode of any popular show as soon or within minutes of it being released then there will be some stress to the servers with all these users wanting to watch the same thing at the same times so thats to be expected but like days after its been air is a bit much.

I'm trying to be very patient here it's really starting to piss me off as I've tried many various solutions, but to no avail , I could find other other ways to watch the anime I watch on CR but I'm trying to watch anime that is licensed in the USA legally as much as I can.this is becoming a very frustrating problem, as I love Crunchyroll and have the utmost gratitude and thanks towards the staff, so please fix this

I dont care if you have to call upon the Gods of Olympus but please FIX THIS PROBLEM. I'm this close to cancel my membership. I have reached a new level of frustation!!! Clearly a not satisfied customer!

i am glad to see some of the others here backing me up and voicing their opinions.

i do hate to resort to complaining, badgering or posting a public opinion on such matters but we all need some way to vent.

i've thought about cancelling many times and honestly the only reason i stay is that i want to watch naruto shippuden and strike the blood upon release (although there are other methods i could go about this... just not in hd). i've given you months to fix the problem yet no solution.

i think CR is just asking us all to cancel paying subscriptions and run adblock to free-ride their service... humphhh

I think they are the ones that need to increase their bandwidth, I've been having problems since they released the manga section and One Piece... They probably attracted new customers and don't have the bandwidth to support the influx during peak hours. It is really bad during peak hours, getting worse every day for myself. I'm just about ready to give up watching during those times, I can't even get 480p to work without stuttering.

Yeah its getting worst, it use to only happen to me with the newest and latest episode of any anime now I cant even watch old episode without it lagging, shuddering, buffering, freezing etc. Can no longer watch anything in 1080p, had to go to 720p which is okay, not as good but acceptable. Now it seems even 720p is unwatchable.... Have to use 480p on the odd occasions but how long will it take to force me to watch everything in SD? I paid to become a premium member to watch anime in high definition not low quality standard definition. Unless Crunchy Roll starts taking its customers seriously and actually listen to us and acknowledge us I probably will be cancelling my subscription in the new year as I'm sick and tired of paying for such a rubbish service! I'm not getting what I'm paying for.... As is most members. Maybe we all need to cancel our subscriptions and that should get the message through.

They've stated elsewhere that they are in the process of some major upgrades to alleviate the problems you guys are having. Some of it seems to be traffic related, and some of it seems to be related to the Flash-based web player or RTMP streaming. They're adding more CDNs and upgrading their Flash software to address both problems, but this can be a fairly major undertaking. In the meantime, if you have any way to play CR streams other than a computer, people seem to be having much better luck with pretty much any other type of device.